


All the King's Horses, All the King's Men

by asuralucier



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Confessions Kind Of, M/M, Marcus Lives Because Dang It, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21591865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: “You’re late.”John was suddenly aware of a pulse, faint, but present. The slow, labored rhythm made its way through a body he thought had already become a corpse. John put his mouth on it and felt Marcus’s heartbeat against the tip of his tongue, just to be sure.Inspired by Taylor Swift'sThe Archer.
Relationships: Marcus/John Wick
Comments: 6
Kudos: 68
Collections: 300bpm Flash Exchange November 2019





	All the King's Horses, All the King's Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).



“We live and die by a code, Jonathan.” Winston told him over the phone. Wherever he was, it sounded full of echoes. “Which is why I’m not telling you that a certain helicopter is being fueled for a certain someone at a certain helipad set to carry him and his associates out of the city. You might not get a second chance.” 

John heaved a long, heavy sigh, feeling the gesture settle, weighted near his gut. By the looks of things, Viggo and his mooks had done a real number on Marcus and Marcus’s apartment. Bullets riddled the walls, and John noted that there was a small pool of blood not yet dry, smeared by the toe of his shoe. 

“I know. I’ll get going.” 

Winston cut the call after that without saying anything else. As Manager of the New York Continental, Winston was always happy enough to do John favors, but John often got the feeling that these favors were being meticulously tallied on an invisible tab. 

Marcus kept no such tab, which was possibly why he was left for dead in the middle of his own dining room. 

Before he turned to go, John knelt down one last time next to Marcus’s unmoving body, to press his face against the slope of the other man’s shoulder. 

“You’re late.” 

Though he hadn't exactly been looking for one, John was suddenly aware of a pulse, faint, but present. The slow, labored rhythm made its way through a body he thought had already become a corpse. John put his mouth on it and felt Marcus’s heartbeat against the tip of his tongue, just to be sure. 

Sometimes, second chances did come to a man who had learned better than to hope for them. 

“Don’t you dare die in my car,” John said, because it was easier to say than, “don’t fucking die on me.” He wasn’t ready to say that yet. In the private recesses of his own head, he felt like he could admit that to himself. 

The drive was a mind-numbing crawl to the Continental. John double-parked the way he usually didn’t and was careful not to think of Marcus as dead weight as he hauled him up the concrete steps and into the lobby. 

“Mr. Wick,” Charon’s greeting trailed off halfway as he took in the situation. 

John tightened his grip on Marcus and dredged up, the best he could, the memory of the man’s pulse and clung to it like air. “I’m double parked out front. Can he see a doctor?” 

When John returned to the hotel again a few minutes later, he was told that his presence would be less than helpful during this critical period. Besides, Marcus was now pumped full of A-grade painkillers and unlikely to wake up for the next couple of days. That notwithstanding, he was going to be well looked after. 

“So he’ll be okay?” John pressed. 

“He will live,” the Doctor said, looking at him. John was familiar enough with that look, the look that was trying to guilt him into seeking medical attention. But all the Doctor added was, “As for the rest, I can’t say. It’s not my expertise.” 

Then he sent John up to the penthouse to have a drink with the Manager.

Winston’s assessment of the entire situation was noticeably less kind than the Doctor’s. The man said, “Marcus is too stubborn to die. Considering that he’s a man who has never understood the value of self-preservation, it’s a contradiction that will continue to serve him well, I suspect.” 

John looked at him. "What?"

"Of course a man will keep cutting off his nose to spite his face as long as the nose keeps growing back."

“I don’t know what that means,” John said. Winston poured him something in a tumbler, it smelled strong, kind of like gasoline. Or maybe John was hallucinating. He tried to remember the last time he did anything in the name of self-preservation like eat or sleep. 

“Yes, you do,” Winston said. “You of all people should know that he holds onto old friends. Even those who aren’t his to hold.” 

Whatever was in the tumbler did indeed taste like gasoline and even burned like it going down. John winced and put the drink back onto the table. “Marcus told you that?”

“More like, he announced that to everyone in New York when he didn’t pocket an easy two million and go on holiday. Just look at this weather, it’s obscene,” Winston said dryly. “For the record, Jonathan, I would have shot you.” 

John took off his wedding ring before entering Suite 818, where Marcus was convalescing. The ring sat in his pocket, beside the thin strap of leather that had once been Daisy's collar. Perhaps these things would not leave his pocket for some time. His finger felt naked without the metal around it, because he’d worn the ring for the better half of a decade, but another part of him thought that Helen wouldn’t mind and would even be happy for him. 

Marcus said, “Hey, John. You look like shit.” 

There was an IV drip feeding morphine into Marcus’s arm, but he seemed clear-headed enough. There were also bits of medical plaster holding him together, but the man looked alive. In a sense, holding on for dear life.

“Speak for yourself,” John returned. 

“I hope you let Viggo have it.” Marcus looked him up and down and through. 

John pulled up a chair, but kept a few respectable inches between himself and the bed. “Who?” Then he remembered. “I don’t know. He’s probably halfway to Russia.” 

Marcus made a noise in his throat that wasn’t exactly complimentary. “I hope the Motherland eats him alive. Him and that scumbag lawyer.” 

“She probably will,” John said. At the end of the day, Viggo would return to his home country with his proverbial tail between his legs. John didn’t know much, but he knew that in those circles, weakness wasn’t tolerated in the least. “Anyway, I got what I wanted.” 

“Did you?” 

There was something in Marcus’s voice that sank its claws into John’s gut and stayed there. The discomfort seeped tellingly into his veins. John started to shift in his chair, but Marcus’s gaze pinned him in place. John swallowed and tried to keep a hold of himself. “I got Iosef. Like I wanted.”

Marcus looked away from him and winced. “You wouldn’t have gotten Iosef if Viggo hadn’t served him to you on a silver platter, John. You think of that?” 

Not in any real terms, but the thought had crossed John’s mind when he’d pointed a gun at Viggo Tarasov and the man’s true character had come dribbling out of his mouth, like he was no better than some Muscovite waif he claimed to be, once, a long time ago. There was that moment, when John thought about disputing the facts as Marcus saw them. He was always going to get Iosef Tarasov; Viggo’s own need to save his own skin just saved him some time. But the moment passed. John was happy enough to let it; he wasn't exactly in the mood to fight. 

“As far as I’m concerned,” Marcus said, “Viggo Tarasov killed his own son. His own flesh and blood. You might have pulled the trigger, John, but --” 

When Marcus was this side of pissed (or indeed, on this side of being high on A-grade morphine), he got sentimental, in a way that didn't seem to sit well with the rest of him. It’d started out as a bit of a joke, that he was the last of the Old Guard, but then it hadn’t been. The Old Guard respected the job, respected what it meant. They did a job, and didn’t go out chasing contracts like they were chasing their next line of not-very-good coke. 

“It’s all right,” John said, just to get him to stop talking. 

Marcus regarded him narrowly. “Really.” 

“No,” John had to admit. He looked at Marcus’s broken fingers and tried not to think about how long it would take for the man to pick up a gun again. 

Nearly two weeks later, Marcus was not much better, but he was itching to leave the stifling confines of the hotel and sleep in his own bed.

“Your front door is bust,” said John. Despite his own misgivings, he found it calming to follow Marcus’s directions and pick up around the suite. It was almost like the old days, when Marcus was ever keen to instill a sense of combat into his consciousness. Nowadays, a sort of violence came naturally enough to John, but it was what still lay beneath, a specially wrought kind of iron that gave him life. Violence was senseless without intent and meaning. 

Marcus said, “Fuck it.” 

“You’re not worried?” 

John heard some shuffling behind him and turned to catch Marcus trying to put on his coat. He stood up from where he was, ready to offer some help, but decided against it in the end. 

Finally, Marcus managed, tucking his one arm in a cast under the coat and the other arm, he’d worked painstakingly through a sleeve. He looked pleased with himself, but winded. He sat down at the edge of the freshly made bed and sighed. “I have never been precious about that sort of thing, have I? There’s a lock on my bedroom door. I’ll live.” 

A tiredness that had its origins in Marcus’s words spread slowly in the room, until John also felt infected with it. Driven by a compulsion that he didn’t yet have the courage the name, he went over to where Marcus was and knelt at the man’s feet. 

Marcus stared down at him, angling his body away as if he was afraid to be touched. “What the fuck are you doing?” 

John swallowed, “I guess. My front door’s not bust. You could come stay for a while, if you wanted. If you can still put up with me.” 

Marcus looked around what used to be John’s living room. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember your place with a lot more...furniture in it?” 

Between cleaning his house after Viggo's cronies had burglarized it for the umpteenth time, and driving to the Continental daily to hassle Marcus (not in John’s own words), he’d sort of let decorating fall by the wayside. He was terrible at that kind of thing anyway. 

“Yeah, well.” 

John followed Marcus into his own kitchen, where things were not that much better. There was a telling crack on one of the countertops, possibly from someone’s skull being split open. It’d been a busy night, some of the details were hazy. 

“Good God,” Marcus whistled lowly. “I’m going to die of malnutrition.” 

“No, you’re not." John went to a drawer and pulled out a handful of takeout menus. He spread them out where Marcus was standing, still mesmerized by the absolute state of John’s counters. “Look, Chinese, Mexican, Greek. -- And this was under my door the other day. I have no idea what it is. And there’s, I don’t know. Cereal.” There was still definitely some cereal.

Marcus looked up from studying the flyer, apparently advertising something fried and inhumane. “Cereal.” 

John was about to add that there was probably milk to go with said cereal but was suddenly unsure if his milk in the fridge had gone bad. Still, there was plenty of room in the fridge to accommodate Marcus’s vegetables, if he wanted. 

But John kept those things to himself and instead said something he didn’t exactly mean to, which was: “You could have shot me, rather than risk starvation to save my ass.” 

Marcus stuttered, and John got the idea that it wasn’t because his body was still being pulled back from the brink of death. “And you could have gone after Viggo and took your revenge.” 

“But I didn’t,” John said. It was only a few steps, but that was enough to close the respectable inches between them, and John didn’t know what would come next. 

“That’s all right, then,” Marcus said very softly. He was always good at keeping still.

And it was, for now.


End file.
